DATE: c1590
Page measurements: 285 x 194 mm
Fragment in upright folio format. Written on two hand-drawn staves on therectoof the last opening of the final gathering of a play written in Englishusing a Secretary hand. The quires were originally unbound, but have beencollected together by the library. The music and text hands seem to be unrelated. The music has been identified by Stewart McCoy as Watkin'sAle. It has no rhythm signs, but the repetitive melodic patterns make it easyto reconstruct. The appearance of the music suggests that it was not intended to survive long,as it is simply an aide memoire for the scribe--music that a player or scribe wished to preserve rarely looks quite soslapdash,and were it not for the fact that it is attached to a more substantialwork it is unlikely that it would have survived so long.
Bibliography: StewartMcCoy: 'Mystery Tune' Lute Society Newsletter iv(April 1987), 7
Craig 1992
folio
|
original
ascription
|
title
|
composer
|
cons.
& cogs.
|
| 38
|
Watkin's
Ale
|
Welde
8/2
|
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